Can People of Color be racist?

Recently, I was denied membership in a Facebook group because I expressed the idea that people of color can be racist. Honestly, I thought everyone agreed with that. Obviously, I'm not suggesting that all people of color are racist. But I believe any person, regardless of skin color, can be racist. What do you think?

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Of course! I was shocked when I heard a friend from Surinam comment on her childrens' colour - the lighter coloured ones got the preference. "But you want to get rid of racism!" I said, "Then how can you discriminate against your own children?" She told me I wouldn't understand - light coloured children got better marriage chances and it made sense to her to help them. But I looked at her dark daughter and knew that she'd get less help and nobody would be proud of her.

I'm afraid this sort of racism is a leftover of our colonial past - nothing to be proud of.

it is definitely not the same thing when the oppressed group reviles the oppressors...if those selfsame oppressed express or act against other historical victims then it is the same...ergo..black against white is a different dynamic than white against black but black against jew is same thing.

Daniel, among other things you illustrate the significance of defining terms. If you are going to debate free will then for fuck's sake define free will first.

In your definition of racism meanings 1 through 3 it is evident that black/white and white/black is different. It is possible for one to apply black against white, but much less likely. Ideas of Aryan purity, racial superiority and white man's burden against the huge backdrop of blacks as apes/picaninnies as being truly lnhuman or less than fully human is not reversed for blacks against whites. The idea of white devils and evil muthafuckers is there. Maybe there is some notion of whites as inferior beings...idk...does Farakand say so?..he jumps on the bandwagon of antisemitism. I am of opinion that meaning number one is the quintessence of racism. It is big-time big-money an aspect of the reality of racism in white against black. Not so the other way around.

As to number 2 it is those ensconced in power who have the opportunity to fuck over the other group politically and socially and that is exactly what happens. So again it is not the same. Lacking power blacks are unable to persecute and discriminate on an institutional basis. Gotta say though blacks have done as well as whites in Africa where they do have the power. Another illustration of how we are all pretty much the same

As to number 3 it applies both ways but with a greater justification for blacks.

Dictionaries are elitist. (If you don't believe me, just ask any "postmodern" fuckhead.)

I completely agree with, and admire, your thoughts on co-travellers and allies.

Just to be a dick (because that's what I do best) I offer a visual aid in response to your statement that

>There is no racial group who has been treated as unfairly, as consistently, throughout history in the USA, as African Americans.

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Racist assholes of whatever stripe have consistently fucked over the people who were here first and the people they brought here against their will, and now they're persecuted. But they love them some Jesus, so I guess it's ok.

I very much agree with you. I think far too often people focus on the differences and fail to realize how much many of us have in common. In reality, the poor of every race have far more in common than is too often understood. That comment isn't intended to downplay the "special" discrimination that comes with being black or Native American, but it's meant to say that people living in poverty share more than is thought about.

The government has given them casinos to bilk the gambling addicts while granting them sovereign nation status so that they can make their own rules and cheat us. No taxes. No contributions to our economy. Making their own tribal courts with their own peculiar rules.

In return for our largesse they have given us tobacco and caused premature deaths through cancer, emphysema and other horrible diseases. I wish we could be treated as unfairly!

Ok they do contribute to the economy by buying firewater. But that is about it.

I am afraid you have been swept up in the romanticism of the noble red man.

Yes there was incidental but necessary collateral damage in causing the natives to be taught our superior culture. But I want you to realize that it is not like the primitives had constructed a great civilization. So backwards were they that they aspired to live in harmony with nature instead of subduing it the way a christian does. Characterizing the treatment of indigenous first americans as unfair or even genocide or other "loaded" words is rather hyperbolic. It is as if we come here from Europe and create a phantasmagoria of modern civilization and in so doing nearly eliminate some lichen or moss that resides innocuously on rocks. What is the real loss?

" Yes there was incidental but necessary collateral damage in causing the natives to be taught our superior culture "

Who the fuck are you to claim one culture is superior to another ??? You can claim the colonists had superior technology, though it was primarily disease that subdued the natives, but you have no right to state any culture is superior to another. Only an asshole says such things.

"So backwards were they that they aspired to live in harmony with nature instead of subduing it the way a christian does"

It sounds like you are claiming that Christianity is superior to native animistic belief. Are you, in fact, a christian ? What are you doing here if you are promoting one religion as superior to another ?